The Electronic Patient Record

Transcription

1 House of Commons Health Committee The Electronic Patient Record Sixth Report of Session Volume I Report, together with formal minutes Ordered by The House of Commons to be printed 25 July 2007 HC 422-I Published on 13 September 2007 by authority of the House of Commons London: The Stationery Office Limited 0.00

2 The Health Committee The Health Committee is appointed by the House of Commons to examine the expenditure, administration, and policy of the Department of Health and its associated bodies. Current membership Rt Hon Kevin Barron MP (Labour, Rother Valley) (Chairman) Mr David Amess MP (Conservative, Southend West) Charlotte Atkins MP (Labour, Staffordshire Moorlands) Mr Ronnie Campbell MP (Labour, Blyth Valley) Jim Dowd MP (Labour, Lewisham West) Sandra Gidley MP (Liberal Democrat, Romsey) Dr Doug Naysmith MP (Labour, Bristol North West) Mike Penning MP (Conservative, Hemel Hempstead) Mr Lee Scott MP (Conservative, Ilford North) Dr Howard Stoate MP (Labour, Dartford) Dr Richard Taylor MP (Independent, Wyre Forest) Mr Stewart Jackson MP (Conservative, Peterborough) was a Member of the Committee during the inquiry Powers The Committee is one of the departmental select committees, the powers of which are set out in House of Commons Standing Orders, principally in SO No 152. These are available on the Internet via Publications The Reports and evidence of the Committee are published by The Stationery Office by Order of the House. All publications of the Committee (including press notices) are on the Internet at Committee staff The current staff of the Committee are Dr David Harrison (Clerk), Christine Kirkpatrick (Committee Specialist), Ralph Coulbeck (Committee Specialist), Duma Langton (Committee Assistant), Julie Storey (Secretary) and Jim Hudson (Senior Office Clerk). Contacts All correspondence should be addressed to the Clerk of the Health Committee, House of Commons, 7 Millbank, London SW1P 3JA. The telephone number for general enquiries is The Committee s address is Footnotes In the footnotes of this Report, references to oral evidence are indicated by Q followed by the question number, and these can be found in HC 422 III. Written evidence is cited by reference in the form Ev followed by the page number; Ev x for evidence published in HC 422 II on 25 April 2007, and Ev x (HC 422 III) for evidence published in HC 422 III on 13 September 2007.

5 The Electronic Patient Record 3 Summary Electronic patient record (EPR) systems have the potential to bring huge benefits to patients and are being implemented in health systems across the developed world. Storing and sharing health information electronically can speed up clinical communication, reduce the number of errors, and assist doctors in diagnosis and treatment. Patients can have more control of their own healthcare. Electronic data also have vast potential to improve the quality of healthcare audit and research. However, increasing access to data through EPR systems also brings new risks to the privacy and security of health records. In England, implementing EPR systems is one of the main aims of the 10-year National Programme for Information Technology (NPfIT), which was launched in 2002, building on earlier initiatives. The main plank of the NPfIT programme is the NHS Care Records Service (NCRS) which will create two separate EPR systems: a national Summary Care Record (SCR), containing basic information, and local Detailed Care Records (DCRs), containing more comprehensive clinical information. NCRS will also include a Secondary Uses Service (SUS) which will provide access to aggregated data for management, research and other secondary purposes. Following delays, trials of the SCR are now taking place at a number of early adopter sites. We found it difficult to clarify exactly what information will be contained in the SCR and what the primary uses of the record will be. The explanations eventually provided by the Department of Health showed that the SCR could have great clinical value in some situations. Therefore, although it will be less comprehensive than clinically rich DCR systems, we support the implementation of the SCR as soon as possible. The consent arrangements for creating and adding information to the SCR have not been well communicated to patients or clinicians. In particular, debate has arisen over whether an opt-out or opt-in system should be used. In fact, a hybrid consent system is now proposed: an opt-out system will be used for the creation of the SCR, while the addition of clinical information will happen on an opt-in basis. This is a satisfactory consent model but we recommend that much more is done to explain these arrangements, particularly to patients. Important components of the SCR have not yet been completed. Sealed envelopes will allow patients to restrict access to particularly sensitive information and are an important safeguard for patient privacy. Meanwhile the HealthSpace website will allow patients to access their SCR from home and has great potential for making care more patient-centred. We therefore recommend that both sealed envelopes and HealthSpace are implemented as soon as possible. We also make specific recommendations for improving these features of the SCR. Maintaining the security of the SCR and other NCRS systems is a significant challenge. Each SCR will be potentially available across the country to a wide range of different users, making operational security especially problematic. Connecting for Health, the organisation responsible for delivering NPfIT, has taken significant steps to protect operational security, including strong access controls and audit systems. However, the

6 4 The Electronic Patient Record impact of these measures in the complex environment of the NHS is difficult to predict. We recommend a thorough evaluation of operational security systems and security training for all staff with access to the SCR. DCR systems, which will allow local organisations to share detailed clinical information, are the holy grail for NPfIT. Such systems can improve safety and efficiency, support key activities such as prescribing, and vastly increase the effectiveness of clinical communication. In particular, DCR systems offer improvements to the care of patients with multiple or long-term conditions. It is on NPfIT s success in delivering DCR systems that the programme s effectiveness should ultimately be judged. In order to deliver DCR systems, Connecting for Health has set out to replace local IT systems across the NHS, as well as building the capacity to link these systems together. The new national broadband network has now been completed, but progress in other areas has been disappointing. In particular, the introduction of new basic hospital Patient Administration Systems (PAS) has been seriously delayed. One of the two main hospital PAS products, Lorenzo, will not be trialled in the NHS until As a result of these and other delays, it is not clear when joined-up DCR systems will be widely available. In addition, we found it difficult to ascertain either the level of information sharing that will be possible when DCR systems are delivered, or how sophisticated local IT applications will be. In its original specification documents in 2003, NPfIT established a clear vision for local electronic records systems. Four years later, however, the descriptions of the scope and capability of planned DCR systems offered by officials and suppliers were vague and inconsistent. Some witnesses suggested that parts of the original vision have been abandoned because of the difficulties of implementing new systems at a local level. We recommend that Connecting for Health publish clear, updated plans for the DCR, indicating whether and how the project has changed since We also recommend that timetables for completing DCR systems are published by all suppliers. An important cause of the delays to DCR systems has been the lack of local involvement in delivering the project. Hospitals have often been left out of negotiations between Connecting for Health and its suppliers, and found themselves, as one witness put it, at the bottom of the food chain. As a result, they have lacked the incentives or enthusiasm to take charge of deployments. Increasing local ownership is now a key priority for the programme. The NPfIT Local Ownership Programme is an important first step but does not go far enough. We make a number of detailed recommendations for increasing local ownership, including giving local organisations responsibility for negotiating with suppliers and for contract management, and offering users a choice of systems wherever possible. We recommend that Connecting for Health switch as soon as possible to focus on setting and ensuring compliance with technical and clinical standards for NHS IT systems, rather than presiding over local implementation. Clear technical standards will allow systems to be centrally accredited for use in the NHS, whilst giving local users the final say over which system is procured and how it is implemented. The GP Systems of Choice initiative is a good model for this approach. We also recommend that an independent technical standards body and a standards testing service be established to support this work.

7 The Electronic Patient Record 5 Safe and effective data sharing, the fundamental aim of DCR systems, also requires a more standardised approach to the recording of clinical information. To this end, the agreement on a universal coding language for the NHS, SNOMED-CT, and a single unique patient identifier, the NHS number, are important achievements. We recommend that clear timetables are set for introducing SNOMED-CT and the NHS number across the health service. In addition, we recommend that Connecting for Health work with professional bodies to develop information standards for the recording of clinical data in the various specialities and care settings across the NHS. The development of the SCR and DCR will offer the SUS access to clinical data which are more timely, better integrated and of a significantly higher quality than those currently available. This is likely to transform the SUS and offers significant benefits, most notably for health research. However, researchers told us that more should be done to ensure that these opportunities are maximised. We make several recommendations for improving access to data for research purposes, including not only the single unique identifier, but also developing better linkage between new and existing databases. Increasing access to patient data also brings new challenges for safeguarding patient privacy, however. There is a difficult balance to be struck between the need to protect privacy and the opportunities for research, between safeguarding individual rights and promoting the public good. There are also a number of weaknesses within current access and governance systems. In particular, during the inquiry questions were raised about the extent to which pseudonymisation of data should be relied upon to protect privacy. We recommend that the Department of Health conduct a full review of both national and local procedures for controlling access to electronic health data for secondary uses. Despite some notable successes, the delivery of NCRS has in general been hampered by unclear communication and a worrying lack of progress on implementing local systems. Although Connecting for Health s centralised approach has brought important benefits, it will increasingly need to be modified, particularly if the crucial DCR programme is to succeed. By clearly restating its aims, providing timetables and indicating how they will be met, and ensuring local organisations take charge of deployment, Connecting for Health can still ensure that NCRS is a success.

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9 The Electronic Patient Record 7 1 Introduction 1. An important aim of most developed health systems is the creation, expansion and linkage of electronic patient record (EPR) systems. The introduction of EPR technology offers numerous and significant benefits. Storing and transferring patient information electronically has the potential to significantly reduce clinical errors and improve patient safety as well as allowing clinicians to communicate more quickly and accurately and to identify relevant information more easily. Good EPR systems can increase efficiency, reduce duplication and waste, and improve the cost-effectiveness of health services. EPR systems can also make information much more readily accessible to patients, allowing them to assume more control over their health records and thereby become more active in their own care. In addition, electronic databases of health information can be used for a range of purposes other than direct care provision, for example clinical audit and research. It is right to describe EPR as potentially a transformative technology However, alongside these new opportunities, EPR systems also bring new risks, particularly to the privacy and safety of health information. Electronic systems allow access to data from many locations, increasing the likelihood of a security breach; they can also give individuals access to much more data than was previously possible, increasing the damage caused by system misuse. Personal health information is often highly sensitive, and it is therefore difficult to repair the damage caused by a breach of privacy. All these risks can be mitigated, but there is little doubt that EPR systems will create, as the European Data Protection Working Party acknowledged, a new risk scenario for personal health information In the NHS in England, the development of EPR systems was given central direction and impetus by the instigation of the 10-year National Programme for Information Technology (NPfIT), the largest civilian IT project in the world, in In developing EPR systems, England is firmly in line with trends in the developed world: EPR systems are being created in various forms in the USA, Canada and Australia, as well as in Scotland, Wales and many countries in the European Union. 4. The NHS Care Records Service (NCRS), and the infrastructure upgrades required to support it, are the central plank of the NPfIT project and account for the majority of planned expenditure. While most GPs and hospitals have long been using IT systems for a range of purposes, including patient record storage, NCRS seeks to expand and link together electronic data about patients, as well as significantly upgrading hardware, software and network infrastructure. Upgrading, replacing and linking existing records systems is intended to lead to the creation of electronic Detailed Care Records, available across local health economies. NCRS will also provide a separate Summary Care Record for each NHS patient, available throughout England. 5. While the benefits of EPR systems are widely acknowledged, NPfIT s implementation, and particularly the delivery of NCRS, has recently been subject to widespread questioning 1 Ev 81 2 See European Data Protection Working Party, Working Document on the processing of personal data relating to health in electronic health records (EHR), 00323/07/EN, WP131, p.5

10 8 The Electronic Patient Record and criticism. Delays of at least two years have affected the Summary Care Record project and the upgrades to Patient Administration Systems (PAS) required to support the Detailed Care Record. A report by the National Audit Office in June 2006 praised NPfIT s initial contracting arrangements but criticised the lack of information about when new systems were likely to be implemented. In March 2007, the Public Accounts Committee concluded that there is still much uncertainty about when and what NPfIT will deliver, highlighting ongoing delays to NCRS. Meanwhile, the piloting of the new Summary Care Record system, which began in spring 2007, has sparked public debate about the privacy and security of the new systems. Academics, the media and growing numbers of clinicians and patients have all expressed serious doubts about the organisation and performance of NPfIT. 6. In light of these wide-ranging and serious concerns, and of the great benefits to patient care offered by EPR systems, the Committee decided in February 2007 to hold an inquiry. Rather than examining the whole of the NPfIT project, we chose to focus on the NCRS project, the most expensive, most ground-breaking and most controversial element of the programme. Our terms of reference were as follows: What patient information will be held on the new local and national electronic record systems, including whether patients may prevent their personal data being placed on systems; Who will have access to locally and nationally held information and under what circumstances; Whether patient confidentiality can be adequately protected; How data held on the new systems can and should be used for purposes other than the delivery of care e.g. clinical research; and Current progress on the development of the NHS Care Records Service and the National Data Spine and why delivery of the new systems is up to two years behind schedule. 7. The Committee received more than 70 written evidence submissions from academics, lawyers and IT companies, as well as a number of staff and patient groups. The Department of Health provided an initial memorandum in March 2007 and sent additional submissions on 12 June and 16 July. We held oral evidence sessions between April and June 2007, hearing from, amongst others, civil servants, doctors, lawyers, IT suppliers, patient groups, the Assistant Information Commissioner and the Minister of State for Quality. The Committee also visited Nashville, Ottawa, Amiens, Paris and Hackney in order to look at and discuss EPR systems. 8. Our report considers the issues raised by the inquiry under the following headings: Overview of EPR systems; The Summary Care Record; The Detailed Care Record; and

11 The Electronic Patient Record 9 The Secondary Uses Service. 9. The Committee would like to thank those who submitted evidence and those we met during our visits, as well as the staff of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office who made these visits possible. We are particularly grateful for the expert advice which we received from our specialist advisors Professor Ross Anderson, Dr Jem Rashbass and Professor John Williams.

12 10 The Electronic Patient Record 2 Overview of EPR systems Background 10. NHS organisations have long made use of a wide range of IT systems. However, levels of computerisation have generally varied considerably between, and often within, organisations and tiers of care. As a broad outline, the following characteristics have been typical: General practitioners have had the highest level of computerisation with the vast majority of surgeries using IT systems both for administrative and clinical purposes. Most practices have stored some patient information electronically, and many have dispensed with paper systems altogether after scanning old paper notes into new electronic systems. The new GMS contract, introduced in 2004, consolidated the high level of IT usage in general practice by requiring payments and performance assessment to be processed electronically. 3 In hospitals, the level of computerisation has varied widely but has been consistently lower than in general practice. All NHS hospitals have used basic Patient Administration Systems (PAS) for a number of years for administrative purposes such as scheduling, recording admissions and discharges, and storing patient demographic and basic diagnosis information. In some clinical areas, such as theatres and pathology, more sophisticated systems have often been used for both administrative and clinical purposes. However, the use of more complex systems capable of recording all aspects of clinical care has been extremely rare, and the overwhelming majority of patient records have been stored in often voluminous paper notes. 4 The lack of unifying standards and a piecemeal approach to procurement has meant that IT systems in different departments within a single hospital have often been unable to communicate with each other. Amongst community and mental health care providers, levels of IT use have been the lowest of all. Many such organisations have not used computers even for administrative purposes and have stored all patient records on paper. 5 More complex systems have been developed in some parts of the country across clinical networks with responsibility for a particular patient group. For example, shared databases and other IT systems have been used at local level by cancer, diabetes and renal networks. 11. In general NHS IT systems have been characterised by an inability to share information between different organisations, between primary and secondary care, and often between 3 Under the GMS contract, responsibility for supplying GP IT systems was passed from individual practices to PCTs. 4 There have been some exceptions to this rule, for example the successful implementation of the Millennium system at Homerton and Newham hospitals in London and the installation of EPR systems at the Wirral Hospital see Q Q 27

13 The Electronic Patient Record 11 different parts of the same organisation. The situation was likened by one witness to a series of electronic islands with little ability to communicate In 1998, the Government launched an NHS information strategy, Information for Health. The strategy was intended to run until 2005 but was superseded in 2002 by NPfIT. Information for Health s goals included: The creation of an electronic health record, containing lifelong core clinical information for each NHS patient, by 2005, developed initially by linking local primary care systems; and Establishing level 3 electronic patient record systems in all hospitals by 2005 (to include electronic ordering, reporting, prescribing and care management). 7 The National Programme for Information Technology 13. In June 2002, the Department of Health published Delivering 21 st century IT support for the NHS: national strategic programme, effectively the blueprint for the National Programme for Information Technology (NPfIT). The strategy restated the importance of the goals set out in Information for Health but acknowledged that progress had been hampered by lack of protected funding, lack of central direction, poor value for money and a shortage of network capacity Delivering 21 st Century IT proposed to address these problems through a more centralised, national approach to NHS IT, linked to the ambitious goals and generous funding increases embodied in the 2000 NHS Plan. 9 The document stated: The core of our strategy is to take greater central control over the specification, procurement, resource management, performance management and delivery of the information and IT agenda. We will improve the leadership and direction given to IT, and combine it with national and local implementation that are based on ruthless standardisation. 10 What NPfIT aims to deliver 15. The initial aims of the project were to establish three main systems: An Electronic Transfer of Prescription service (ETP); An electronic appointment booking service (subsequently expanded in scope to become Choose and Book); and 6 Q NHS Executive, Information for Health: An Information Strategy for the Modern NHS , September 1998, p.110. The strategy set out 6 different levels of EPR to be achieved by hospitals, ranging from level 1, Clinical Administrative data, through to level 6, Advanced multimedia and telematics, p Department of Health, Delivering 21 st Century IT support for the NHS: national strategic programme, June 2002, p.1 9 Ibid, p.1 10 Ibid, p.i

14 12 The Electronic Patient Record The NHS Care Records Service (NCRS), including a detailed electronic patient record to be shared by local organisations and a summary record, available nationally The programme s initial aims also included major upgrades to existing software and network infrastructures, including the following: The creation of a private broadband network to link all NHS organisations to the national system, known as the New National Network for the NHS (N3); The development of a National Data Spine to store information centrally, to link local and national IT systems and to host national systems such as the Summary Care Record; and The widespread installation, replacement or upgrading of basic computer systems across the NHS, including PAS software for hospital and community providers and new or upgraded systems for GPs. 17. In order to achieve these goals, the Department of Health agreed a number of contracts with a range of private suppliers in 2003 and The main contracts are shown in the table below: Service Scope What it does Contractor Date Agreed Value ( m) New National Network for the NHS (N3) National Fast and reliable network to enable communication within and between NHS organisations. The foundation of the rest of the NPfIT project. British Telecom Feb National Data Spine National Database which holds patient demographic information, national electronic patient record (Summary Care Record) and enables communication between national and local NPfIT systems. British Telecom Dec Choose and Book National Links GP and hospital systems to allow electronic booking of appointments. Atos Origin Oct NHSmail National NHS-wide service. Cable & Wireless July Local Service Provider North East Regional Provision of NHS Care Records Service, new Patient Administration Systems and prescribing (ETP) systems across the region. Computer Sciences Corporation (Accenture until Sep 2006) Dec ,100 Local Service Provider Regional Provision of NHS Care Records Service, new Patient British Telecom Dec Full details of the original specification for the NCRS, which also included a range of local clinical IT systems, can be found at National Programme for Information Technology, Output Based Specification Version Two, Integrated Care Records Service, 1 August 2003.

15 The Electronic Patient Record 13 London Administration Systems and prescribing (ETP) systems across the region. Local Service Provider Eastern and East Midlands Regional Provision of NHS Care Records Service, new Patient Administration Systems and prescribing (ETP) systems across the region. Computer Sciences Corporation (Accenture until Sep 2006) Dec Local Service Provider North West and West Midlands Regional Provision of NHS Care Records Service, new Patient Administration Systems and prescribing (ETP) systems across the region. Computer Sciences Corporation Dec Local Service Provider South Regional Table 1: Main NPfIT contracts Source: National Audit Office Provision of NHS Care Records Service, new Patient Administration Systems and prescribing (ETP) systems across the region. Fujitsu Jan Since 2002, the scope of NPfIT has increased as a number of additional services have been added to the original specification. These include: Digital capture and storage of X-rays and other diagnostic results through the installation of Picture Archiving and Communications Services (PACS) in acute hospitals; Automation of assessment of GP practice performance against the new GP contract using the Quality Management Analysis System (QMAS); and A system (known as GP2GP) for moving patients GP records instantly from one practice to another when a patient switches practice. How the programme is organised 19. In contrast with previous NHS IT strategies, NPfIT involves the procurement of new systems and services at a national level rather than by individual NHS organisations. In 2005, responsibility for NPfIT was transferred from the Department of Health to an armslength body, NHS Connecting for Health. Thus all of the contracts listed in table 1 were agreed on behalf of the NHS by the Department of Health and are now held and managed by Connecting for Health. The majority of new systems will be installed in local NHS organisations, but suppliers are answerable to Connecting for Health, a national organisation. Connecting for Health is currently transferring some responsibility for contract management to the 10 regional Strategic Health Authorities (SHAs) through the NPfIT Local Ownership Programme (NLOP), which we discuss in Chapter 4.

16 14 The Electronic Patient Record 20. Since its inception, the project has been headed by Richard Granger, inaugural Director General for IT in the NHS. Mr Granger announced in June 2007 that he would leave his post by the end of the year Department of Health and Connecting for Health officials praised the centralised organisation of the programme, arguing that the introduction of national-level procurement in 2002 had led to a step change in progress on the delivery of new IT systems to the NHS. They pointed out that the centralised approach had led to: Better value for money because of national procurement: officials argued that local procurement of systems had generally proved unaffordable in the past; 13 Much more consistent development of IT across the NHS, in contrast with the previous electronic islands ; 14 Greater potential for interoperability between systems than if a more localised approach had been taken Defending the centralised approach to the programme, Richard Granger was especially critical of progress prior to the inception of NPfIT: the progress that had been made was lamentable and yet at very significant cost of about a billion pounds a year at The revisionists are busy at work now trying to make out the progress that had been achieved before 2002 was extremely good and has somehow been retarded by the introduction of national systems; but the evidence does not substantiate that viewpoint As table 1 demonstrates, some of the main NPfIT contracts cover services to be provided nationally across the whole of the NHS, such as the N3 network and the National Data Spine (which includes the Summary Care Record). Contracts are also in place for the provision of services across regional areas. For this purpose, the NHS was divided into five geographical clusters, for each of which a Local Service Provider (LSP) contract was agreed. LSPs were contracted to provide a wide range of services to organisations across their cluster, including new PAS systems and the other services which will contribute to the Detailed Care Record. The five LSP contracts made up 80% of the value of the initial contracts (around 5 billion of the total value of 6.3 billion). The five clusters and their LSPs are shown below: 12 See Personal statement regarding Richard Granger, Connecting for Health press release, 6 June Q Q 2 15 Q Q 2

17 The Electronic Patient Record 15 North East Cluster Primary supplier: Accenture (transferring to CSC) Contract Value: 1,099m Duration: 10 Years Primary supplier: CSC Contract Value: 973m Duration: 10 Years North West & West Midlands Cluster Eastern Cluster Primary supplier: Accenture (transferring to CSC) Contract Value: 934m Duration: 10 Years Primary supplier: Fujitsu Contract Value: 996m Duration: 10 Years Southern Cluster London Cluster Primary supplier: BT Contract Value: 996m Duration: 10 Years Figure 1: The 5 regional NPfIT clusters 24. The five LSP contracts were originally awarded to four different suppliers, with Accenture holding two of the five contracts. However, Accenture withdrew from the programme in September 2006 and its two LSP contracts were transferred to Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), one of the existing LSPs. 17 Thus CSC now holds three of the five LSP contracts with the others continuing to be held by Fujitsu and BT. BT also holds the two major contracts for supplying services at a national level, those for the N3 network and the National Data Spine. 25. LSPs have subcontracted some areas of their work to smaller, more specialised companies. In particular, the development of new PAS software for hospitals and community care providers has generally been outsourced. In the three clusters now under CSC, the Lorenzo PAS system is being provided by isoft, a UK software firm. 18 In the London and Southern clusters, a Common Solution Project was initially formed between BT and Fujitsu to procure PAS systems from the US software supplier IDX. However, the partnership was subsequently dissolved and both LSPs subsequently switched from IDX to another US firm, Cerner, as their main PAS system supplier. 19 Cerner will supply the Millennium PAS system The current suppliers for new hospital PAS software are shown in the table below: 17 See Changes to delivery of NHS National Programme for IT, Connecting for Health press release, 28 September Q Q Q 389

18 16 The Electronic Patient Record Cluster Local Service Provider PAS system PAS system supplier London BT Millennium Cerner (IDX until July 2006) Southern Fujitsu Millennium Cerner (IDX until April 2005) Eastern CSC Lorenzo isoft North East CSC Lorenzo isoft North West & West Midlands CSC Lorenzo isoft Table 2: Hospital PAS suppliers by cluster Source: National Audit Office Progress to date 27. Assessments of NPfIT s overall progress to date have varied widely. The Department of Health s evidence submission provided an upbeat assessment of progress: [NPfIT] is already providing essential services to support patient care and the smooth running of the NHS, without which it could not now properly function. Installation of a modern, high speed, secure infrastructure and national network [N3] has been completed ahead of schedule and is daily supporting millions of business transactions in the NHS Widespread coverage of Community Patient Administration Systems has been achieved where nothing existed before. Over half of hospitals now have digital x rays and scans Richard Granger offered the Committee a range of statistics to demonstrate the scale of progress: We now have 19,000 places connected up, so we have one of the biggest virtual private networks on the planet and people take that for granted. We are now computerising, to deliver prescriptions safely, 200 GP practices a week with the relevant software. We typically move 120,000 prescriptions electronically now on any given day. About every 10 seconds a patient gets a booking completed electronically Evidence from suppliers was equally positive about progress. BT, both the supplier of the main national systems and the LSP for London, provided a clear timetable for completion of their contracted elements of the programme: The foundations of the NPfIT system provided by BT are now built, operating and secure. Culturally integrating these systems so they become second nature for NHS 21 Ev 1 22 Q 2

19 The Electronic Patient Record 17 staff is well underway. Over the next five years, the goal is to complete this programme A report by the National Audit Office (NAO), published in June 2006, however, was notably less bullish. While commending the substantial progress achieved by the programme, the NAO also acknowledged that implementation continues to present significant challenges. 24 In particular, the NAO report highlighted: delays of ten months to the delivery of the National Data Spine and around two years to the launch of the Summary Care Record, both the responsibility of BT; 25 and delays of between one and two years to the delivery of systems by LSPs. 26 The Department of Health has acknowledged that the installation of new hospital PAS systems, one of the key responsibilities of the LSPs, is now up to two years behind schedule The subsequent report from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), published in March 2007, expressed further doubts. In particular, the PAC highlighted: Two-year delays to both the national and local elements of the NHS Care Records Service, pointing out that no firm implementation dates exist for these elements of the programme; The failure to quantify the benefits which the programme will deliver; A lack of capacity amongst suppliers, exacerbated by the withdrawal of Accenture, and an over-reliance on two main software suppliers, Cerner and isoft, for delivery of key elements of the programme; The lack of effective communication with clinicians by NPfIT s leaders and failure to clarify the roles of local NHS organisations in the delivery of the programme; and A narrow focus on the delivery of new systems rather than the broader process of business change required to maximise benefits. 28 The PAC concluded that, At the present rate of progress it is unlikely that significant clinical benefits will be delivered by the end of the contract period Ev National Audit Office, Department of Health: The National Programme for IT in the NHS, HC 1173, 16 June 2006, p.6 25 Ibid, p.4 26 Ibid, pp Ev 9 28 Public Accounts Committee, Twentieth Report of Session , Department of Health: The National Programme for IT in the NHS, HC 390, pp Ibid, p.6

20 18 The Electronic Patient Record 32. Estimates of the likely overall costs of the programme have also varied substantially. As shown in table 1, the cost to the NHS of the main initial contracts will be 6.3 billion over the 10 years of the contract. However, the NAO estimated in its report that the total cost of implementation, including expenditure by local organisations, will be 12.4 billion. 30 In its response to the Health Committee s 2006/7 Public Expenditure Questionnaire, the Department of Health estimated the total net cost of NPfIT at 7.5 billion, after accounting for an estimated 4.2 billion of cost savings as a result of the national programme. 31 The NHS Care Records Service 33. At the heart of NPfIT is the NHS Care Records Service (NCRS), a set of projects which eventually aim to provide detailed electronic patient records across the NHS which can be shared between different clinicians, organisations and tiers of care. The majority of the expenditure on the programme, including the creation of the National Data Spine and the replacement of local PAS systems across the NHS, is in support of the NCRS. As the PAC put it, the NCRS is central to obtaining the benefits of the programme. 32 The Department of Health described NCRS as the cornerstone of NPfIT. 33 What NHS Care Records Service aims to deliver 34. The NCRS will be made up of a group of systems with distinct functions and purposes. These are: The Personal Demographics Service (PDS), an application supported by the National Data Spine, which is already in widespread use. 34 The PDS contains basic demographic details about every NHS patient including name, address, date of birth, NHS number and current GP. 35 The Summary Care Record (SCR), which is also supported by the Spine and is currently being piloted in the Northwest. The SCR will be a high-level record of key clinical information including allergies, prescriptions, summary medical history, operations and procedures. An SCR will be created for every NHS patient, although patients can choose to opt out, and will be potentially available throughout England. We examine the SCR in Chapter Local record systems, on which comprehensive patient records will continue to be stored in hospitals, GP surgeries and other organisations. Many of these systems will be replaced or upgraded as part of NPfIT and paper systems will increasingly 30 National Audit Office, Department of Health: The National Programme for IT in the NHS, HC 1173, 16 June 2006, p.4 31 Health Committee, Public Expenditure on Health and Personal Social Services 2006: Memorandum received from the Department of Health containing Replies to a Written Questionnaire from the Committee, HC 1692 i, p Public Accounts Committee, Twentieth Report of Session , Department of Health: The National Programme for IT in the NHS, HC 390, p.5 33 Ev 117 (HC 422 III) 34 See Ev 4 5: the Department of Health described the PDS as a key component of NCRS and stated that the system already transfers 6.5 million messages per week to and from users across the NHS. 35 The PDS replaces the National Strategic Tracing Service, which had many similar functions. 36 Ev 5

6 Section 6 Who Can Help? 6.1 In this Section This section provides a list of contacts that can provide support during the implementation of the project, under the following broad headings: Regional Cluster

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